


The Housekeeper

by Northern_Lady



Series: Unfinished Marvel Tales [8]
Category: Iron Man (Comics), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Irish Spy Agencies, Tony Being Tony, eventual flirting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 18:02:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14982605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northern_Lady/pseuds/Northern_Lady
Summary: In which Tony Stark's housekeeper is not at all what she seems.





	The Housekeeper

Tony Stark never paid all that much attention to his housekeeper. He knew her name was Clara Murphy and that she was thirty six years old and Irish. She’d been working for him for about three months. He knew she didn’t like it when he tracked mud across her freshly washed floors. She was rather pretty with her curly red hair and blue green eyes but the few times he had tried to flirt with her she had brushed him off. Other than that he knew next to nothing about her. It wasn’t that he didn’t care, she simply wasn’t relevant to his concerns. So when he passed her in the hallway in his house and discovered she had a bruise on her face he was little surprised about the amount of concern that sight had dredged up in him. 

“Clara?” he called after her as she passed him with a duster in hand. 

“Mr Stark?” she turned to face him, probably a little surprised that he was speaking to her since he never did after she failed to flirt with him. 

“Are you alright? I know maybe it’s none of my business but since you do have bruise on your face I figured I’d ask.” he said, unsure how she was going to take that. 

“Oh this?” she reached up and touched the bruise on her face. “It’s only a wee little bruise. I’ve had much worse before. I’m fine.” 

“When did you have much worse?” he wasn’t quite ready to let the matter rest. 

She shrugged. “Usually happens over something stupid like pulling out a wine cork or tripping over a shoelace or falling up the stairs. Like a stook, I never seem to pay quite enough attention to what I’m about. The bruise will probably be gone come morning and I’ll just get a new one to replace it doing some other fool task.” she said cheerfully and tried to move past him and continue dusting. 

Tony let her go but something about her words and her bruise bothered him. He was pretty sure someone had to have hit her for her to have gotten a bruised like that. Maybe she really was clumsy, he couldn’t be sure and if she didn’t want to talk about it though there wasn’t much he could do to help so he just let her go back to her work. 

Two days later Clara had a new bruise on her arm. She wore elbow length rubber gloves but they didn’t quite cover the bruise on her upper arm. He caught up to her in the hallway as she was leaving cleaning one of the bathrooms and stopped long enough to say good morning but he didn’t ask about the bruise. Then at the end of the week he was in his study and heard a crash out in the hallway. He went out to find the source of the sound and found Clara on the floor with an overturned mop bucket and water spilled everywhere. She must have slipped somehow while mopping the floor somehow. 

Tony went to her and helped her to her feet. She accepted his hand up but he noticed right away that she didn’t put any weight on her left foot. Clara reached for the mop and rested most of her weight against the mop handle. “Did you sprain your ankle falling?” Tony asked her, knowing that if she had gotten hurt while working he was going to have to pay for it. Not that he couldn’t afford it or anything. 

“No I...the ankle was already sprained...fractured actually.” she said with a blush in her cheeks. 

“You’ve been working all day on a broken ankle? Why isn’t it in a cast?” He asked. Confused and concerned. 

“It will heal in a few days anyhow. You’ve heard of mutants? I’m one of them. Usually when I get hurt it heals up much quicker than most people. There was no point in a cast.” Clara told him. 

“Okay, two questions about that,” Tony said. “First of all, do you have any other powers? And secondly, how the hell are you getting hurt so often?” 

She smiled a little at his questions. “I have some enhanced strength, speed, and agility. The only other part of my mutation is my unnatural eye color. Turquoise eyes are very rare and in my case are a mutation. As for my injuries, most of those come from my other job.” She winced in pain as she leaned a little more on the mop handle. “Do you mind if I sit?” 

“Of course not,” Tony took her arm and helped her back to his study where she took a chair. “So what exactly is your other job?” 

She sighed. “You’re not gonna like it. I work for the NSU.” 

“Irish Intelligence. Great, are you here to spy on me?” 

“Not at all. I’m actually here to help you. I’m under orders to maintain my cover as a housekeeper but from the beginning I thought the NSU should have been straight with you and told you about the threat to your life...there’s a member of the IRA who has been targeting a list of enemies. You’re on his list. I was assigned here to catch him and to keep you alive.” Clara explained. 

“You do realize that I’m Iron Man?” he said, a little annoyed that this tiny woman was assigned to protect him. “I don’t exactly need a lot of protection.” 

“Of course you don’t when you’re with the Avengers but in your house you’re off guard. That’s where we expect Paul Murphy will strike, here at your house when you aren’t prepared to fight.” Clara told him. 

“Yeah, a heads up about that would have been nice.” Tony said. 

“I agree, but my superiors were concerned that you would up your security if you knew and Paul would never get into the house and then we couldn’t catch him.” 

“So basically they wanted me to be the bait?” 

“Basically yes. I’m sorry.” she got to her feet. “I think I’m alright now. I’m going to clean up that water in the hallway.” 

“Wait, you still never explained how you got hurt.” Tony pointed out. “For a live-in housekeeper you barely ever leave the house. I don’t see how you could be getting hurt like you have been.” 

“While you are with the Avengers, I train with my partner in the garden. I told him not to go easy on me and he doesn’t, so sometimes I get bruises. Last night he threw me off a roof. It was a further drop than I’ve ever made but at least now we know my limit so it was a good thing.” 

“Your partner sounds brutal. You actually trust someone who is willing to hurt you?” 

“I gave him just as many bruises as he gives me. It’s nothing. Now I really should go clean up that water before it ruins your hardwood floors,” Clara said, making her way out of the room. 

“After everything you just told me, you’re actually gonna continue this charade of being my housekeeper?” 

“Well it’s either that or I can be your bodyguard,” she joked. 

He thought about it for a moment. “You say you have enhanced strength. How much?” 

“I can lift eight hundred pounds without too much trouble, can run a marathon without training. I’m not indestructible or anything. Just enhanced.” 

“Your superiors would let you be my bodyguard?” he continued. 

“Yes, that was the original plan but they assumed you wouldn’t approve.” Clara said. “Is that what you want now?” 

Tony grinned. “I think it might be fun.”


End file.
